Feast of July. The cinematic equivalent of the alibi offered
by the man on trial for necrophilia: "Your Honor, I didn't
know she was dead; I just thought she was British." Well-acted
but painfully sloooow, Feast of July tells the tale of
a young woman (Embeth Davidtz) who is impregnated and abandoned
by a smooth-talker at some unspecified time in the past in rural
England. She travels by foot to another village in search of the
man, suffering a miscarriage along the way. Once there, she's
taken in by a kind family with three sons, all of whom fall for
her in varying degrees. Pretty much through attrition, she settles
on one before the smooth talker re-enters her life, leading to
sudden tragedy. The Merchant Ivory-film isn't bad; there's just
not much there. It's the absolute softest "R" rated
movie of all time. No nudity, no bad language and just a very
brief scene of violence.
Get Shorty. After a long, banal summer, Get Shorty
hits like a bracing blast of cool fall air, reminding us why we
love movies so much. Get Shorty (from Elmore Leonard's
1991 best-seller) follows the trail of Chili Palmer (John Travolta
in a great performance), a collector for a Miami loan shark who
heads for L.A. in search of a skip and lands smack dab in the
middle of the movie biz. He falls in with movie producer/ schlockmeister
Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman) and Zimm's big star Karen Flores (Rene
Russo), who is also the ex-love interest of Hollywood's biggest
star, Martin Weir (Danny DeVito). Chili hits Zimm up with an idea
for a movie. Zimm likes the idea, but first wants to buy a hot
script so he can offer it up to Weir. Zimm is also dodging drug
dealers, who have given him money as a ticket into the film business
and who are, in turn, ducking their angry Colombian suppliers.
Chili dances through this jungle, impressing the phonies and winning
the girl as he goes. And when the impatient loan shark hits town
to find out what's taking Chili so long, it all comes to a wild
(and wildly satisfying) conclusion.
How to Make an American Quilt. Winona Ryder gets seven
lessons in love when she spends a summer listening to the romantic
histories of all the women in her grandmother's quilting bee.
We're talking flashback-o-rama, with the majority of the stories
taking bittersweet turns in which the women's husbands either
leave them, cheat on them or die. This uninspiring "quilt"
of mini-narratives is somehow supposed to help Ryder choose between
a hunky Don Juan type (Jonathon Schaech) and a regular-guy carpenter
(Dermot Mulroney). Though the appearance of so many fine actresses
has its benefits, the movie's lessons about life are mere bromides,
and they're made all the sappier by Ryder's talentless presence
and weak narration. (Why does Ryder always choose scripts that
require her to narrate?) American Quilt features Maya Angelou,
Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn, Samantha Mathis and Alfre Woodard.
Jade. Joe Eszterhas ought to win a special award, because
he's responsible for two of the worst films this year. At least
Showgirls has campy laughs, extravagant choreography and
soft-core nudity on its side. What does Jade have? Ornate
set design, an extended (and very boring) car chase and an incomprehensible
murder-mystery plot, for starters. Directed unpleasantly by William
Friedkin, it's kind of like Basic Instinct without the
sex. David Caruso does his NYPD Blue shtick--again--as
an investigator trying to uncover the identity of Jade, a prostitute-turned-psychologist
played by Linda Fiorentino. The role is supposed to showcase the
cold, ruthless sexuality Fiorentino displayed so engagingly in
The Last Seduction, but the actress is lost in this dispiriting
mess. Let's hope she finds something better soon.
Now and Then. This coming-of-age comedy about a tight-knit
circle of friends in small-town America is hardly a female-version
of Stand By Me, but it does succeed on its own cinema-lite
level, thanks to fresh performances by young guns Gaby Hoffman,
Thora Birch (My Girl), Ashleigh Aston Moore and Christina
Ricci (Casper). Now and Then follows the nostalgic
flashback formula, with a chain-smoking Demi Moore narrating as
she hurtles down the highway toward a dreaded reunion in the master-planned
suburban setting of her childhood. Thankfully, most of the film
winds through the delightful and melodramatic summer of '69, sparing
us the agony of watching too many scenes with Demi Moore and Melanie
Griffith side by side. While at times Now and Then promisingly
touches upon the social upheaval that lurks behind all those perfect
suburban lawns and single-family homes, these themes are never
developed. Rest assured, this sentimental journey comes with the
requisite happy ending, tying up all loose ends with a big, pink
bow.
The Scarlet Letter. When the opening credits state the
film is "freely adapted" from the novel, they aren't
kidding. The filmmakers have taken an American literary classic
and turned it into a plainly idiotic bodice-ripper that pits small-town
intolerance against Hester Prynne's fiercely independent feminist
sexuality. This is the second film of the year in which a woman's
love is signaled by a little bird that leads the way (the other
is How to Make an American Quilt). The bird leads Prynne
(Demi Moore, as superficial as ever) into the arms of Gary Oldman,
a minister who swims naked so as to expose his buttocks to God
and anybody else who might be watching. You can bet that when
the time comes for nooses to be tied around the lovers' necks,
a bunch of Indians will pop out to save the day. Maybe this movie's
creators should be forced to wear a big letter "A" around
Hollywood--for the sin of asinine adaptation.
Showgirls. With this heavily hyped NC-17 travesty, Robocop-director
Paul Verhoeven has created a new type of robo-erotica where robocharacters
have robosex in the roboscummiest areas of that robocity they
call Las Vegas. Roboscreenwriter Joe Eszterhas fills his inane,
behind-the-scenes roboexposé with gobs of crude robosub-plots
and robodialogue, creating plenty of excuses for roboactress Elizabeth
Berkely and others to bare their robobreasts and robopelvises
with increasing regularity. If you're a robot, you'll no doubt
be turned on. (All others stay away.)
Strange Days. Given the scarcity of original screenplays
coming out of the Big Studio establishment, Strange Days deserves
due credit. Katherine Bigelow's first noteworthy attempt since
Near Dark blows away all other attempts at cyber-cinema
we've seen thus far. If you're expecting a lot of high-priced
special effects, you'll be disappointed. But creative use of point-of-view
camera work and a dark, documentary-style vision of the year 2000--with
humvies rolling down Sunset Boulevard and soundbites from the
evening news bringing us up to speed on the violence and mayhem
in Los Angeles at the end of the millennium--draw us into a believable
future in which cop-turned-cyberdrug dealer Lenny Nero (Ralph
Fiennes) and straight-laced friend Mace (Angela Bassett) fight
for survival in a world gone mad with paranoia, deception and
murder. Despite some snags in the fabric of believability, Strange
Days is entertaining up until the last minute--which is a
good 60 seconds of unforgivable drivel.
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